Coronavirus Pandemic

Has anyone posted this?

https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/

The updates at the bottom of the page are also very interesting.

I'm currently on day one of a three week lock down: army on the streets, all businesses (bar chemists and supermarkets) closed, not allowed to leave the house except to buy food or seek medical attention, huge retailer already saying it may not be able to reopen (40 000+ employees). Repent!
Yes I posted that above - it is amazingly relevant to understanding what is happening here.

Any hospital will be overloaded if the guidelines state that all patients testing positive for COVID-19 shall be ventilated rather than permitted to die.
I don't know if that is the rule - does anyone know - but if it is, a fair slice of people reaching the end of their lives would be deemed to require ventilation.

@Jim Please read the above link if you haven't already - the information in that link is being regularly updated. Here is the information for yesterday:
  • German researcher Dr. Richard Capek argues in a quantitative analysis that the „Corona epidemic“ is in fact an „epidemic of tests“. Capek shows that while the number of tests has increased exponentially, the percentage of test-positive people has remained stable and mortality has decreased, which speaks against an exponential spread of the virus itself.
  • German Virology professor Dr. Carsten Scheller from the University of Würzburg explains in a podcast that Covid19 is definitely comparable with influenza and has so far even led to fewer deaths. Professor Scheller suspects that the exponential curves often presented in the media have more to do with the increasing number of tests than with an unusual spread of the virus itself. For countries like Germany, Italy is less of a role model than Japan and South Korea. Despite millions of Chinese tourists and only minimal social restrictions, these countries have not yet experienced a Covid19 crisis. One reason for this could be the wearing of mouth masks: This would hardly protect against infection, but would limit the spread of the virus by infected people.
  • The latest figures from Bergamo show that total mortality there almost quadrupled in March 2020 from typically 200 to 300 people per month to around 900 people. It is still unclear what proportion of this was due to Covid19 and what proportion was due to other, locally specific factors or other causes (see above).
  • The two Stanford professors of medicine, Dr. Eran Bendavid and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, explain in an article (Paywall) that the lethality of Covid19 is overestimated by several orders of magnitude and is probably even in Italy only at 0.01% to 0.06% and thus below that of influenza. The reason for this overestimation is the greatly underestimated number of people already infected (without symptoms). As an example, the fully tested Italian community of Vo is mentioned, which showed 50 to 75% symptom-free test-positive persons.
  • Dr. Gerald Gaß, President of the German Hospital Association, explained in an interview with the Handelsblatt that „the extreme situation in Italy is mainly due to the very low intensive care capacities“.
  • Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, one of the early and vocal critics of a „Covid19 panic“, was provisionally excluded by the board of Transparency Internantional Germany, where he headed the health working group. Wodarg had already been severely attacked by the media for his criticism.
  • NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden warns that governments are using the current situation to expand the surveillance state and restrict fundamental rights. The control measures currently put in place would not be dismantled after the crisis.

David
 
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Just learned that China has closed down all theaters across the country... suggesting a second wave in China, Sadly, because of the intense information suppression.

Also, US Senator, Tom Cotton... who is no bullshitter, just stated that of the first 40 known cases, 14 of them never had any contact with any other case or the wet market.

In consideration of the fact that if there had been a quick transparency provided to the rest of the world where a.) the best the world has to offer (experts) and b.) the virus could have been contained in the small outbreak area... it is not unreasonable to question the whole scenario we are globally facing and "why" / "how" such a thing could happen... in fact, did happen.

In light of the post I made earlier, if one reads that post and this one... a picture does begin to form where greater scrutiny of this matter is merited.
 
This is interesting. Belgium reported a 0.8 percent death rate while Italy has reported something along the lines of 8 percent. They explain, in the article, something which I have thought about, that (of course) the reported death rate is strongly related to how widely available testing is. As it GENERALLY stands, the only people getting tested are those who are sick and have seeked care.

I think the actual death rate (when all is done and said, compiled, and considered) will be lower than the number reported by Belgium.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-death-rate-by-country-current-fatalities-compared-to-cases-2020-3?amp


0.8 % is 8 times greater than the death rate for seasonal flu which is .1%. There were 22,000 flu deaths in the US this year. 22,000 x 8 is 176,000. If the death rate for covid-19 is .8% it could cause 176,000 deaths in the US if we weren't taking extreme precautions to prevent the spread.
 
0.8 % is 8 times greater than the death rate for seasonal flu which is .1%. There were 22,000 flu deaths in the US this year. 22,000 x 8 is 176,000. If the death rate for covid-19 is .8% it could cause 176,000 deaths in the US if we weren't taking extreme precautions to prevent the spread.

I just "heard" (and understand, I am always suspicious of anything from the media), but I thought Drs. Fauci or Brix said it... that this year's flu season in the US has resulted in around 50,000 deaths.

I then found this link - the CDC -
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm
 
I just "heard" (and understand, I am always suspicious of anything from the media), but I thought Drs. Fauci or Brix said it... that this year's flu season in the US has resulted in around 50,000 deaths.

I then found this link - the CDC -
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm

My source is here:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm

It is updated weekly so the value is subject to change.

I'm aware of the range in estimates. I've used that myself. I use the more conservative estimate when calculating potential covid-19 deaths to avoid criticism that I am over estimating.
 
@Jim Please read the above link if you haven't already - the information in that link is being regularly updated. Here is the information for yesterday:


David

Okay, the conspirators are taking over the UK. What are you going to do about it?

It is very easy for people who are not responsible for millions of lives to speculate about the true death rate. It is another thing to have to take action to safeguard those lives and be responsible to the people for your decisions. I don't see a conspiracy were I live.

Can you explain how increased testing causes a steady exponential growth in cases and deaths over tens of days? Does each person tested go on to test 2.2 other people on average and kill one of them some fraction of the time?

If it's just the flu, why did China shut down their economy? People who are remote from the situation can be fooled by bad data, but when the doctors are there on the ground and see their hospitals and morgues are overflowing it isn't due to false positives or asymptomatic patients. The patients there have acute respiratory disease.

The best evidence for a conspiracy in my opinion is that China is hiding cases and deaths - that Covid-19 is more dangerous than we know.

I understand the arguments that the death rate is under question. They might be right. I don't know the true value. My stance is that we will know how serious the situation is by watching the death rates, even if the statistics are not reliable, hospitalizations and excess deaths will be definitive. I agree that in time we may have better information on the death rate and it might be little different than the flu. But what should we do in the meantime when we don't have that data?

Diseases spread exponentially and covid-19 has a long latency period with 10 times or more people contagious than the number of people showing symptoms. If we don't take precautions early it will be too late for precautions to do any good.

Anthony Fauci who is on the White House Coronavirus Task Force, published an article where he acknowledges the possibility that the death rate could be similar to flu, yet he is still adamant that we take these harsh precautions and argues against Trump's insistence that we get back to normal by Easter. It is either a conspiracy he is not trying to hide or there is a good reason for the precautions. Probably the justification is that we don't know the death rate but have make decisions on the data we have not the data that might be collected later. I read his article I think he is actually making a mistake in how he compares the death rates of covid-19 and flu. He estimates the case fatality rate of covid-19 which you can't do. The case fatality rate means fatality rate of confirmed cases - if you estimate the number of cases, they are not confirmed.


https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2002387
March 26, 2020​
N Engl J Med 2020; 382:1268-1269​
Covid-19 — Navigating the Uncharted​
List of authors.​
Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., H. Clifford Lane, M.D., and Robert R. Redfield, M.D.​
On the basis of a case definition requiring a diagnosis of pneumonia, the currently reported case fatality rate is approximately 2%.4 In another article in the Journal, Guan et al.5 report mortality of 1.4% among 1099 patients with laboratory-confirmed Covid-19; these patients had a wide spectrum of disease severity. If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%. This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively.2​
If you estimate the fatality rate by assuming the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases are high, that is not the case fatality rate. It is an estimated fatality rate including unconfirmed cases. Presumably this mistake was made by one of the other authors.

Trump wants things back to normal by Easter. Fauci is pushing to keep the restriction in place "as long as necessary".
 
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My point is that the government is not going to act upon a speculations about the death rate that might be proven by detailed research projects at some date in the future. They are going to act on the best numbers they have now for their location. What else can they do? Because infectious diseases spread exponentially and because of the latency period when people are spreading the disease before they show symptoms, the government has to take precautions early for them to do any good. I don't know the true death rate, but I don't see a conspiracy where I live.
 
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If more and more hospitals are overwhelmed with patients I think that will be a good sign the problem is real. They say Paris hospitals will be overwhelmed next.

This story is from yesterday:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-france-idUSKBN21E1AT
MARCH 27, 2020 5:46 AM​
PARIS (Reuters) - A spike in coronavirus patients means hospitals in and around Paris will reach saturation point within 48 hours, the head of the French Hospital Federation said on Friday, with the peak not expected until April.​

https://news.yahoo.com/france-turned-one-high-speed-030450492.html

France turned one of its high-speed trains into a vehicle to transport coronavirus patients from overburdened hospitals in the east to the facilities with more capacity in the west.​
Twenty coronavirus patients in critical condition were transferred to a larger hospital in France by a high-speed train that was transformed to be medically equipped, several news outlets reported.​
"The eastern region is at the peak of its wave, which we will probably all experienced in our regions in the coming weeks," Dr. Lionel Lamhaut, the physician in charge of transporting patients, told France 24.​
As of Friday night, France had close to 33,500 confirmed COVID-19 cases and almost 2,000 deaths.​


Case fatality rate in France: 2000 / 33,5000= 5.97%
 
People have argued that there are many unreported cases of covid-19, and many deaths attributed to covid-19 were really caused by something else, so the true fatality rate is much lower than what is being reported.

However there are other factors that cause the fatality rate to be underestimated.

False positives (which it is argued are very high with covid-19 tests and explain the seemingly rapid spread of the disease) incorrectly lower the fatality rate by giving a larger value for the total number of cases.

And during an outbreak of covid-19 there is a 2-3 week lag between onset of illness and death. Therefore the fatality rate should be calculated with the current total number of deaths and the total number of cases from 2-3 weeks ago which is the number of cases that produced the current total number of deaths.

For example, the US that might be 1246 (deaths by 3/26/20) / 1629 (cases by 3/12/20) = 76%. You could multiply the number of cases by 100 to account for a huge number of unreported cases and you get .76% or 7.6 times the fatality rate of seasonal flu (.1%)

You can juggle the numbers to argue what you want but my point is: The argument: "due to unreported cases and misdiagnoses the fatality rate of covid-19 is much lower than reported" is not necessarily correct because there are other factors that incorrectly lower the calculated fatality rate that have to be accounted for too: false positives and the fact that the fatality rate during an outbreak, when the disease is spreading exponentially, can be more than an order of magnitude too small because the deaths from many cases have not yet occurred.
 
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Mind = Blown

Still, conspiracies aside, things like this taking place on my doorstep terrify me.

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https://www.breitbart.com/national-...bei-province-ground-zero-for-the-coronavirus/

Massive Protest Breaks Out in China’s Hubei Province, Ground Zero for the Coronavirus​
...​
Evidently the protesters are infuriated by how the government has treated them during the crisis – infuriated enough to flip over police cars and swarm past riot control barriers.​



 
Okay, the conspirators are taking over the UK. What are you going to do about it?

It is very easy for people who are not responsible for millions of lives to speculate about the true death rate. It is another thing to have to take action to safeguard those lives and be responsible to the people for your decisions. I don't see a conspiracy were I live.
Rather than asking me to regurgitate what I have already written, why not peruse the site to which Vortex has just linked?

David
 
You might have failed to notice this post of mine... In fact, it was a link, not just three words:

https://off-guardian.org/2020/03/24/12-experts-questioning-the-coronavirus-panic
That is an excellent resource, and it is probably true that links stand out better if they contain the whole URL, even though they are a bit ugly.

There was a time when links came out in a contrasting colour, and so were hard to miss, but nowadays that seems to be considered too in your face.

David
 
0.8 % is 8 times greater than the death rate for seasonal flu which is .1%. There were 22,000 flu deaths in the US this year. 22,000 x 8 is 176,000. If the death rate for covid-19 is .8% it could cause 176,000 deaths in the US if we weren't taking extreme precautions to prevent the spread.

Everything I can find suggests that, each year, 20-60,000 die from the flu each year. This shows a year by year breakdown of the estimates, which show this range.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html

I personally think the final toll will be lower than the 0.8 percent reported by Belgium because, even there, (by way of necessity) those being tested are generally those in critical care. In Italy (death rate 8 percent) the average age of the persons being tested was 81 years old and generally in a critical care unit. That’s the first point I’m considering. The second point I’m considering here is one you raised earlier, in that there may be some deaths attributed to other causes which are actually caused by covid-19. Maybe there’s something to this, I don’t know. But I find the first point far more compelling.

The point you make about the politicians is a valid one and it’s something I’ve considered. No politician wants to be the “guy who didn’t act” and who was, therefore, responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people. In that sense, I don’t think we can be surprised that such harsh measures are being taken. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t sit here and wonder if this is all the right thing to do. I also don’t think there’s some conspiracy going on, but I haven’t considered any potential conspiracies in any way, nor am I informed on any of these conspiracies.

With the economy going into the tank, people will lose healthcare coverage, incur an unbelievable amount of stress, and many will go broke. Poverty, stress, and lack of healthcare coverage are all also predictors of early death. With Many of these people in the prime of their lives. Many have closed businesses and cannot now reopen them. This isn’t really considered because it’s under the surface, while those dying from covid-19 are right in front of our faces. So there’s not an emotional attachment, but it’s there.

We are essentially forcing peoples businesses into the toilet because of a strain of this (admittedly bleak and massive) strain on the healthcare system. And the vast majority of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. “Your business is done for? Sorry about that. Here’s a check for 1,200 dollars. Hope it helps.”

I can better understand closing down events with large crowds than I can forcing people to close their businesses.

I don’t understand people essentially begging for martial law. Yes it’s an extraordinary time, but it may at some point set a dangerous precedent. No, I don’t think that the USA will become a totalitarian state in 10 years as some equally paranoid people think, but I do think these types of things are to be avoided at all costs.

In parts of California, there is some statute supposedly where if you are caught keeping your business open, they will shut your electricity and water off. There is a video (I couldn’t presently find it) of a lady walking around and identify business that were open and reporting them. And she was so peppy and was cracking jokes as she did so. That’s the level we’ve reached.

To be sure, there’s no easy solution. And we’re eating a shit sandwich with either route. The strain on the medical system is of course a massive concern, as are the lives of those who are sick. I personally feel that the draconian actions taken are more damaging to the livelihood, and probably the health of the general public than this virus is. And MAY, at some point set a dangerous precedent. Or be part of some slippery slope that, especially in America, we should be avoiding. Of course nothing may come of it either. Perhaps that’s more likely, but still.....

I think there are things that are worse than death. Perhaps that’s easy for me to say in my current position. But I can promise I would be saying the same thing if I was 90 years old living in a Covid-19 hotspot.
 
I think there are things that are worse than death. Perhaps that’s easy for me to say in my current position. But I can promise I would be saying the same thing if I was 90 years old living in a Covid-19 hotspot.

I agree, and I am 70. Also I would still agree if I were a materialist. It is morally abominable to ask the bulk of the population - including kids - to shoulder an enormous burden just to keep some old and sick people alive a little longer.

David
 
Rather than asking me to regurgitate what I have already written, why not peruse the site to which Vortex has just linked?

David

This is from the article Vortex posted:

https://off-guardian.org/2020/03/24/12-experts-questioning-the-coronavirus-panic
"In Hubei, in the province of Hubei, where there has been the most cases and deaths by far, the actual number of cases reported is 1 per 1000 people and the actual rate of deaths reported is 1 per 20,000. So maybe that would help to put things into perspective. "​

Supposing a population of 20,000 ,
1 death per 20,000 = 1 death in a population of 20,000
1 case per 1000 in a population of 20,000 = 20 cases

1 death / 20 cases = .05 death per case or a case fatality rate of 5%

That is a case fatality rate of 5%

The author says it would help to put things into perspective. I think it does.
 
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Everything I can find suggests that, each year, 20-60,000 die from the flu each year. This shows a year by year breakdown of the estimates, which show this range.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html

I personally think the final toll will be lower than the 0.8 percent reported by Belgium because, even there, (by way of necessity) those being tested are generally those in critical care. In Italy (death rate 8 percent) the average age of the persons being tested was 81 years old and generally in a critical care unit. That’s the first point I’m considering. The second point I’m considering here is one you raised earlier, in that there may be some deaths attributed to other causes which are actually caused by covid-19. Maybe there’s something to this, I don’t know. But I find the first point far more compelling.

The point you make about the politicians is a valid one and it’s something I’ve considered. No politician wants to be the “guy who didn’t act” and who was, therefore, responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people. In that sense, I don’t think we can be surprised that such harsh measures are being taken. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t sit here and wonder if this is all the right thing to do. I also don’t think there’s some conspiracy going on, but I haven’t considered any potential conspiracies in any way, nor am I informed on any of these conspiracies.

With the economy going into the tank, people will lose healthcare coverage, incur an unbelievable amount of stress, and many will go broke. Poverty, stress, and lack of healthcare coverage are all also predictors of early death. With Many of these people in the prime of their lives. Many have closed businesses and cannot now reopen them. This isn’t really considered because it’s under the surface, while those dying from covid-19 are right in front of our faces. So there’s not an emotional attachment, but it’s there.

We are essentially forcing peoples businesses into the toilet because of a strain of this (admittedly bleak and massive) strain on the healthcare system. And the vast majority of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. “Your business is done for? Sorry about that. Here’s a check for 1,200 dollars. Hope it helps.”

I can better understand closing down events with large crowds than I can forcing people to close their businesses.

I don’t understand people essentially begging for martial law. Yes it’s an extraordinary time, but it may at some point set a dangerous precedent. No, I don’t think that the USA will become a totalitarian state in 10 years as some equally paranoid people think, but I do think these types of things are to be avoided at all costs.

In parts of California, there is some statute supposedly where if you are caught keeping your business open, they will shut your electricity and water off. There is a video (I couldn’t presently find it) of a lady walking around and identify business that were open and reporting them. And she was so peppy and was cracking jokes as she did so. That’s the level we’ve reached.

To be sure, there’s no easy solution. And we’re eating a shit sandwich with either route. The strain on the medical system is of course a massive concern, as are the lives of those who are sick. I personally feel that the draconian actions taken are more damaging to the livelihood, and probably the health of the general public than this virus is. And MAY, at some point set a dangerous precedent. Or be part of some slippery slope that, especially in America, we should be avoiding. Of course nothing may come of it either. Perhaps that’s more likely, but still.....

I think there are things that are worse than death. Perhaps that’s easy for me to say in my current position. But I can promise I would be saying the same thing if I was 90 years old living in a Covid-19 hotspot.

While we're all grasping at straws here since we don't have expert epidemiologists or economists here, it seems that each side may be minimizing the other's expressed risks. You seem to see material, long lasting harm coming from the measures being taken by many governments. While there is no doubt there are economic impacts being felt, I would ask for your reference point as to the long lasting or even permanent impairment to which you seem to be alluding.

While I'm not an economist, I am in the investment industry. What I'm reading from many economists from some of the world's largest asset management firms is that they see this contraction of the economy differently than most (all?) others in recent memory. Unlike, say, the financial crisis of 2008 there are no visible underlying weaknesses or bubbles (e.g., subprime mortgages). Should we be able to get the economy gradually functioning again within a reasonable time frame (granted, I can't define that), these economists expect a pretty strong "snap back" as the underlying health of the global (let alone U.S.) economy is generally strong.

Now, should we be in this type of extreme economic lockdown for an extended period of time (again, hard for me to define), then all bets are off and we likely are facing more widespread, permanent impairment of economic health for many. But as many seem to see death as a normal part of life and are questioning extreme measures to curtail it, so to is economic decay for businesses and people. Bankruptcies occur every day; unemployment claims are made every day.

In closing, I think as much as folks are pushing back against the weakness in good data on COVID-19, I would ask you reflect on the same weakness in good data on many of the assertions being made regarding the impact of the containment measures that been rather casually tossed around in this thread. Seems only intellectually honest, no?
 
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